slowly she turned

Gleann Cholm Cille, known in English as Glencolmcille or Glencolumbkille

The first day was a tough one. I can never sleep more than a minute here and there on a plane, and as soon as I stepped off the plane early that morning, I went dashing to the bus stop with my backpacks and shoulder bag, just to find that the bus was arriving a bit late and there had been no reason to try to run. I say “try” because my days of dashing are absolutely over.

The next five hours were spent heading to my destination for the week, the southwest area of Donegal. When Sandy and I did the O’Neill Megalithic Tour 2012, we skirted this area with a brief stop in Letterkenny on our way to Buncrana and the peninsula of Inishowen in the far north of Ireland, and I always had to urge to return to explore more of Donegal. I chose this area after seeing the photos and videos of a new Facebook friend, Margaret Cunningham, a tapestry weaver from Carrick who manages a historic site in Glencolmcille on the coast.

I did not have many photo opportunities on the way there, but I did see many small towns that I would have loved to explore. The bus made a stop long enough in Cavan for me to take a couple of photos. I wanted to do this because my great-great grandfather was from the country near Cavan. Maybe I can explore central Ireland the next time.

Once I got off the bus in Glencombcille, I was thoroughly exhausted and had sweat through my clothes. I could not check into my hotel (which was over a pub/restaurant and modern) until 4:00 and they meant it. Ireland was going through a heat wave of highs in the low 80s and sunny, beautiful weather which would have been a refreshing day here in North Carolina, but these days I have particular problems with tolerating any heat at all. Of course, there is no air conditioning here.

After walking around a bit, I went to Roarty’s, the pub next door, and had a pint of Smithwick’s and gabbed with the owner and a couple of locals. Beautiful little pub.

Once John Eoinín’s opened, the bartender of its pub let me into my room, which had a small fan. I took a cold shower, washed out my clothes in the shower, and hung them up to dry in the sunny window. I laid down wet in the hot room and took a nap, and when I got up I saw that my recently dyed hair had left green marks on the pillowcase.

Kelly’s Corner was the only restaurant in walking distance to eat and I got there just before they closed. It was a good, friendly place to eat, and I had a chicken and cheese wrap with a sweet chili sauce and chips. I would go back the following morning for breakfast. As for this night, I took a photo of the sunset from my second floor window, collapsed in front of the fan, the darkness not descending until long after I closed my eyes.